For the past few years, our school has been using SchoolNotes to post our homework assignments online. Recently, however, we have been having problems with SchoolNotes not updating properly, and this summer I had a terrible time signing up for new teacher accounts. So I have begun to investigate other options, and I thought my research might benefit other teachers looking for an online homework site.First up: Homework Station.This is a snappy, simple little site with no ads and a very easy interface. Teacher signup is quick and easy, and homework entry is quick and easy as well- great for those with minimal web skills. The only complaints I have are that you can’t direct-link to a teacher’s site, from our school website for example. Also, teachers can post grades from only three different subjects. This works for some, but what about teachers like me who teach every grade in the school. I have 19 classes! 3 boxes just isn’t going to cut it.Next: Homework Hero.Oh, no. I’ve already hit a “con” – this site is not free. However, the yearly fee starts at $24.95 for a whole school for a year, so it’s really not that bad. But if you are an individual teacher, that’s a lot to spend when there are plenty of free options available.It looks like there are a lot of good things about this site. Here’s their list of “Basic Features”:

Assignment pages have limited commercial messages appropriate for all viewers. No pop-up or pop-under ads.

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Easy, online sign-up. Only school employees or others authorized by a school may sign up.

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Available to individual schools or individual teachers.

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Optional Reminder Service for teachers.

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Frequent data backups.

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Automatic lost password retrieval.

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Individual teachers can upload a graphic to the assignment page!

Sounds Great! But in order to try it, we have to pay…YourHomework.com- This site just looks spammy. I moved on to the next one.ClassNotesOnline.com- this looks ok- I would like to see a sample school site, but there are not many to be found. The sample site they have available is very minimalist. I do like the fact that you can create several pages, with a set of navigation links at the top.Final analysis- after looking at the options, I would probably go with Homework Hero. That is just my opinion. However, in the time since I started writing this draft, our school has actually decided to stop the use of a homework website (I did all this research for nothing! lol) Even being the techie that I am, I applaud this decision. Our students have planner booklets that were not getting used, because they would just look it up online. But what happens when the network is down, or the website crashes? We felt the need to instill a sense of responsibility in our students, for them to keep track of the work themselves. In the end, these homework sites should be a back-up, not the only way to keep track of schoolwork.What do you think? Are we coddling students by not holding them responsible for writing down their own work?

Homepage | @15 – some cool stuff for teens, as well as information about Best Buy grants for school programs. I love the video from Fall Out Boy encouraging kids to be themselves and not try to fit into any one mold of what they *think* is popular.